Delly, My Heart Belongs to Another
by WizMonCruWil
Summary: Her gaze happens to intersect with mine. Our eyes lock. Her grey eyes smolder, like plumes of smoke. She almost glowers at me, even as her countenance looks sad. For beneath her stare there appears to be regret, obligation, self-loathing and... Longing?... I should have thanked Peeta Mellark for tossing me that bread that undoubtedly saved my life. If things had been different...
1. Chapter 1: It Should Have Been You

**Chapter 1: It Should Have Been You**

 **Peeta's POV**

My heart always leaps into my throat whenever she walks through the front door of the bakery.

Her silky brown hair is always in that single braid running down her back - that single braid that I just want to undo. That hair that I just want to run my fingers through. Her face is round and striking, her lips voluptuous (even if they are somewhat chapped and not rouged). And on this particular day, she enters in her blue dress. The dress she always used to wear to the Reaping, and is probably the finest piece of clothing she owns. The fabric accentuates her curves that have become more wholesome as she has grown into womanhood. At my age - 28 - I find it surprising, but a deep relief, that she has not yet married. Though people say that she has never wished to, and wants even less to be a mother.

Katniss Everdeen is the most accomplished huntress in District 12. With her skills, she could have made a run at becoming Victor of the Hunger Games, if she had been Reaped. She spent many years feeding her family, after her father - a Seam miner - passed away in a tragic collapse. Her mother followed when she was 18, and since then, she has helped to raise her little sister, Prim.

I have been in love with her since I was five years old...

"Peeta! I almost have this delivery for the Hawthornes ready! Can you take it over? You know how Gale likes his bread on time!"

... And yet, I am reminded at the sound of my wife's voice, how I married the wrong woman.

I didn't exactly have much choice in the matter. When I turned 18, my mother pretty much arranged for me to marry Delly Cartwright, my childhood friend. I had wanted to propose to Katniss. Even though, she being Seam and I being a Merchant, marrying across class lines is almost universally frowned upon. Even though she has never expressed a desire to marry or have a romance with any man. Even though we have hardly spoken and don't really know each other.

Well, except for that one time we interacted. But it was years ago.

It was when we were maybe 11, not long after Katniss's father died. She and her family were starving. One rainy day, I burnt some bread on purpose and gave it to her. We never discussed it again after that. No thanks or welcomes were ever exchanged.

I watch Katniss now as she approaches the counter, her game bag slung over her shoulder. "Two squirrels, as requested," she tells my father. Thank goodness she deals with him, and never again has to worry about getting caught by my mother. The hag mercifully died two years ago.

As Katniss makes her sale, her gaze happens to intersect with mine. Our eyes lock. Her grey eyes smolder, like plumes of smoke. She almost glowers at me, even as her countenance looks sad. For beneath her stare there appears to be regret, obligation, self-loathing and...

Longing?

Does she remember the bread? Does she remember that one moment we shared as much as I do?

We finally tear our eyes away from each other. I notice Katniss tug slightly at her braid, self-consciously, almost. She takes her leave. Delly calls to me that Gale and Madge Hawthorne's order is ready, and I depart out the back to take it. At one time, I had thought I would lose Katniss to Gale Hawthorne, for he was the only man she could be seen around. But he went and married the former Mayor's daughter. A boon for his Seam miner family, I should say.

* * *

When I return from the delivery, Delly is waiting for me up in our bedroom. She sits in nothing but her skivvies, and I inwardly groan. From her body language, I can tell right away that she is not happy.

"How do you want to do this? Shall I start, or you?"

I brush past her. "Not tonight, Delly."

There is a pause until she finally snaps at my back: "If you two want each other that badly, why don't you just jump into bed and get it over with?"

I spin around to face her. "Excuse me?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Peeta! I see you! Every day, watching the Everdeen woman like a hawk when she strolls in. You both are such idiots, the staring contest you get into, wondering who's gonna blink first! You've never looked at me the way you look at her."

I should deny it, the way any good husband would. But I can't find it within me. "You're right. I don't. Delly... my heart belongs to another. We can't keep this up, that we see each other in a romantic sense. I know it, and so do you. It's no secret."

"Your mother hounded us about when we were going to have a baby," Delly sniffed. "And your father's now taken up that cause."

"Delly," I try to say as gently as I can. "You're like my sister. You always were. A baby would do nothing but try to force us to be something we are not. And never have been. Being your husband... it has been a mistake."

Delly's eyes pool with tears. "But you've been more than just a brother to me... Fine! You want Katniss Everdeen? You can have her! Fuck her! See if I care! I release you. She wants you too, God forbid; I see the way she looks at you."

I can't believe it. She's letting me go. I actually sigh with relief. "Thank you." I peck Delly's cheek once and then race out of the Bakery, heading for the Seam. I am going to do what I should have done in the first place, a long time ago...


	2. Chapter 2: Fuck Me

**Chapter 2: Fuck Me**

 **Katniss's POV**

I skin the rabbit for my dinner, my thoughts going to the one place that torments me. My weakness that I now angrily try and bat away. I should never have made myself so vulnerable!

I once vowed to never get married or have kids. I saw how marriage can destroy a person. My mother was destroyed by my father's death. Unfortunately, the pressure of my sister getting married to Rory Hawthorne has not helped me stay resolute in my vow.

And then there is... _him_. Him and that infernal bread he had to toss to me.

I have always hated owing people. Most Seam folk do, even if they take a debt very, very seriously. I should have thanked him. I should have thanked Peeta Mellark for tossing me that bread that undoubtedly saved my life. And I should have grudgingly admitted just how... handsome he was. Is. Perhaps... if things had been different...

A sudden flash of movement through the glass panes of my window makes me take pause. Someone is approaching. Wiping my hands on my dress, I go and open the door.

There is the Baker's son, coming up the path. I cross of my stoop to meet him halfway. "Is there something you want? Because now might not be the best time -"

He suddenly grabs my skull and yanks me forward, crashing his lips against mine in a searing kiss. He kisses me passionately. Right on the lips.

I give a startled squeak into Peeta's mouth. I have never kissed, nor been kissed by, a man in my life. Peeta releases me roughly, panting. I gape at him in shock. My palms come to press into his chest, and for a moment, I see fear in his eyes, as though he thinks I'm going to push him away. But then my fingers fist the fabric of his shirt and I almost angrily mash my lips to his, kissing him back. A kiss in return.

I breathe deep through my nose as I deepen the kiss, exhaling into his mouth so that my lips part for his. We open our mouths to each other and moan as finally, after years of wordless foreplay and stares of longing, we physically join in this way.

Peeta's tongue battles for dominance with mine. His arms entangle about my waist, splay across my back, as he pulls me flush against his muscular form. Shocked by his eagerness, I stagger back into my house, dragging me with him. My fingers fall into those blond curls of his that I have always wanted to run my fingers through, and I jerk him closer with a low groan, my breasts heaving for every breath. "Hmmmmm..."

Our heads thrash from side to side as our lips snap at each other with desperate pecks, deep make-out sessions so engrossing, it is hard to tell whose lips are whose. Where his mouth ends and my mouth begins.

Peeta's hands now begin to wander. Slipping beneath my waist, his palms caress and feel up the accentuated, curvy flesh of my ass. His digits, his fingernails dig into the flesh there, squeezing, cupping the extra skin that has unfortunately built up there as I have matured into full womanhood.

"Mmm... no... no..." I whimper weakly into his mouth.

Peeta gives my buttocks a firm slap, and I yelp into his lips, so that he accidentally catches my lower lip between his teeth, nipping it. Draping my arms languidly about his neck, I hold on as Peeta's hands sweep my butt and under my thigh, raising my leg to his waist. Deeply aroused, I allow it and hook my leg around his torso with little resistance, so that my skirt rides high up my creamy thigh.

Peeta sweeps me into a dip, holding me gently, even as I gasp against his tongue. Then, Peeta lifts me off my feet, hoisting me onto my kitchen table. He clambers on top of me as I squeeze both my legs around his hips. Our lips claw at each other as we continue to kiss furiously. I feel the cool evening air tickle my folds, and I know Peeta has done away with my panties. I buck my soaking wet center into his pelvis.

"I want you to fuck me," I growl intensely, my eyes clouding over with lust and pent-up frustration about to be shattered and anger at how our sexual tension has gone on this long.

Peeta slams into me without another word. I throw my head back into the wood of the kitchen table, my jaw going slack, my eyes rolling into the back of my skull. I jerk my body violently into his, matching Peeta thrust for thrust, our bodies undulating frantically as we both race each other to completion. To see who will cum first.

"Uhhhhh... Guhhhhh... HUHHHHHHH! UUHHHHHH! OHHHHHH!" I moan loudly and long, moan like a whore who goes to the Peacekeepers for a good fuck. My cries are even more pathetic when one considers that this is my first time having sex, sleeping with, a man. But it has been worth the wait. I waited for the right person, even though he's married. What a dirty woman I am!

At last, with a growl, Peeta comes inside me. He claps a hand over my mouth as I continue to keen and cant into his pelvis, to muffle my cries.

"MMMHMMMMMMM!" With a muffled squeal, I orgasm all around him, squeezing him between my legs. These legs that I so easily spread and opened for him because I have wanted to have my way with him for years. If there is anybody I would have wanted to marry, considered marrying, it would have been him. It should have been him.

Peeta releases me. Dipping his head, he kisses me indecently, bashing his tongue down my throat. I don't mind, as I close my eyes in pleasure and kiss him back. We break apart with a POP!

"I've left my wife," he pants. "She knows, and she has released me. I love you, Katniss Everdeen. I always have. After my divorce, will you marry me?"

I stare deep into his impossibly blue eyes. Slowly, I nod.

"Yes, Peeta. I will."

* * *

Peeta and Delly divorce. And one dark night, in the living room of my simple Seam abode, I adorn myself in Mother's wedding dress. The bridal gown Prim wore before me.

By my fireplace, Peeta and I perform the marriage ritual. We toast a bit of bread and share it. When Peeta pulls me close, I press my hands flat into his chest, gazing up at him with only a tiny bit of fear. Hesitancy at the unknown.

We're doing the right thing. We'll make this work. Somehow.

Tilting my head, I permit Peeta, my new husband, to kiss me. My eyes fluttering shut, I relax into the kiss, standing on my tiptoes to meet him.

We are two people who have finally found each other. Married to the person we should have been with all along.


End file.
